Investigating the mysterious app after finally making it home.

Chapter 1 – Discovering the App (continued)

It was after midnight by the time Jason returned to his living room.

The only light was coming from under the door to the girls’ room, where Jason could faintly hear at least two of his house-mates chatting. Either that or one of them had a podcast playing. He set his bag down next to the door after retrieving a partially used stick of incense. He used a lighter to get it smoking, and then traced a series of symbols in the air, while muttering a brief chant in what he hoped was a decent interpretation of old gaelic.

“Would you knock it off with that creepy voodoo shit?” Jason nearly dropped the stick of incense; he was so startled by Heather’s voice from the kitchen in front of him. He hadn’t seen her there in the darkness.

“Heather!” He gasped, “You startled me.”

“Oh did I?” She asked, in mock apology. “I gave you a start? Well now you have an inkling what it might feel like to have someone perving on you in the privacy of your own home. We made a deal. You keep your eyes to yourself. Do you want us to kick you out? Is that why you were perving on Kate?”

As Jason’s eyes adjusted, he began to make out Heather’s form. She’d been leaning against the table, a mug of something in her hand. Her blond hair was up in a very tight bun, and she seemed to be wearing dark form fitting pants with white lines on it and an equally dark hoodie with red and white stripes on the right arm, and… was that a toy gun on her hip? “What are you wearing?” He asked, a question he realized belatedly probably shouldn’t be his first priority before addressing her accusation.

“What the hell? You just can’t help it, can you? You could at least try to be subtle about it.”

“I wasn’t… I’m not perving on you, I’m just trying to figure out why you’re dressed like that…” Jason **** himself to look her in the eye, not the outfit which seemed very atypical of her usual wardrobe.

“It’s from Mass Effect.” She explained, though that didn’t really explain much. “See the N7 symbol?” She pointed to some lettering he could barely make out on her shoulder.

“Why are you wearing it?”

“For fuck’s sake. We’re talking about you and your wandering eyes, not my let’s play costume.”

“You mean what happened earlier with Kate?” His mind finally got back around to the topic she was most interested in. “That wasn’t intentional. I wasn’t perving on her, I just happened to glance in her direction when I heard the door open, but there wasn’t even anything to see.”

“Yeah, that’s what your sister said. She may be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but someone’s got to hold you accountable.” She pushed off from the table, took a final sip from her mug, and set it down in the sink before heading past him towards her bedroom. “Consider this a warning.” She paused with her hand on the door knob. “And put that thing out before you start a fire. You peeking on us is bad enough without the voodoo shit too.”

“It’s not voodoo, it’s just an old wiccan… charm.” He trailed off; Heather was already closing her bedroom door behind her.

He sighed, and doused the incense stick. He’d long been fascinated by old pagan religions, and had tried to adopt a few simple rituals for things like warding away nightmares and bad luck, but this ritual had already been interrupted, and he no longer felt like restarting it now that he was truly alone in the dark living room.

Jason made his way to the computer desk. He thumbed the on switch to his laptop but then blinked. He was certain he’d closed the laptop before class, hadn’t he? He hadn’t even turned it on between work and his evening classes.

He shook his head, and decided to put it from his mind. As his laptop booted up, he pulled out his phone, checking for new messages and notifications. There was a message Kyle, the leader of his gaming group, confirming that they were good to go for tomorrow night. And then there was that new app again. It couldn’t hurt to check it out, he thought. So he tapped the icon on his main screen, and was greeted by an oddly familiar image as the app loaded almost instantaneously. There was a geometric pattern that was quite reminiscent of some of the old wiccan and hermetic rituals and spell designs he’d found in some of his books, and over the top of it all were the words “Relationship Editor”.

“The heck?” Jason leaned forward, and clicked on the ‘get started’ button in the corner of the screen. “I guess MRE doesn’t stand for ‘meals ready to eat’.” He said aloud. Was this a dating sim game?

Next up came a menu with several topics he could select. At the top was ‘Relationship Profiles’. After clicking on that, the next screen only confused him further. The app was asking him to select a relationship profile to peruse with a series of icons and names not of fictional characters, but of people he actually knew in real life.

Right at the top was Kyle West, immediately followed by Heather Chase, and her icon was a photo of her face with her hair back in her signature pony tail she wore for cheerleading. He didn’t think it was a picture he’d already had on his phone, so he wondered where it had come from.

He quickly tapped Heather’s icon, morbidly curious what the app had in store for him.

Heather Chase

Relationship: Rival, Roommate

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Hostility 21, Affection 20, Resentment 16, Dominance 10, Loyalty 10

Special Traits: Cocktease, Drama Queen

“What the…?!” Jason didn’t know what to make of this. Where were these numbers coming from? Hostility 21 out of 100 seemed about right. But resentment? What did she resent him for? And any amount of affection above 0 seemed a bit of a stretch to his mind. And then there were the traits. Drama queen fit, but he couldn’t imagine anyone actually saying that to her face, let alone her using the term in a facebook page or the like. So where had the app picked up the information from? And what about the cocktease trait? Why was that there? Sure, she was gorgeous, as were most cheerleaders. Privately, Jason could admit he’d had a serious crush on Heather from the moment she’d started high school, and went from his sister’s awkward best friend to a real knockout. Possibly one of the hottest girls he knew.

He backed out of Heather’s profile, and clicked on the next. His computer science teacher, Mrs. Taylor.

Marianne Taylor

Relationship: Example, Student

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Hostility 21, Dominance 18, Admiration 12, Loyalty 11, Protectiveness 6, Affection -4

What exactly did example mean? And why was his teacher so hostile to him? He hadn’t thought of her as hostile… sure she called on him frequently, but he thought that was mostly because he was good in her class, and worked hard to generally have the right answer. How did this app know any of this information? Was there some way he could check the accuracy?

He backed out of that profile too, and scanned down the list. He realized quickly that every name was someone he’d interacted with in some way, and had some form of relationship with, good or bad. And they were ordered by the most recent interactions on top. And it wasn’t just women either. There was Adam, who sat near him in computer sciences, and then Marcus a little further down. His profile read:

Marcus Jeffreys

Relationship: Rival, Victim

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Jealousy 60, Hostility 52, Insecurity 33, Fear 19

Jason was floored. He wasn’t 100% convinced that this app was the real deal, but he wasn’t really questioning it at the moment. So much about Marcus’ behavior made sense with the numbers and details in front of him. Though he wished the app would go into a bit more specifics about what the individual traits meant. But perhaps it could if he found the right help feature. There’d been a tiny question mark icon in the corner of the screen from the moment he’d opened the app, and Jason clicked on that now, hoping it would provide some answers.

“Welcome to the Relationship Editor application.” It read. “You’ve been selected to receive this very unique opportunity to try out this product which is, as you’ve no doubt guessed, not a normal everyday app. This app analyzes the psyche of anyone you have a relationship with, and grants you very direct insight into their attitudes and feelings towards you. Yes, this is a magical effect. As you use the app and explore your relationships with it, you can track in real time how those relationships evolve. What’s more, you will earn energy, or points, that you can use to apply effects to your relationships, allowing you to grow or diminish certain attitude levels at unnatural rates, or at higher costs outright changing or removing certain traits. It is strongly recommended that you do not tell anyone else about the app, especially those whose relationships you are manipulating. What’s more, the app will hide itself from anyone but the user, making it difficult to divulge information on the app even should you choose to do so.

“Any questions?”

A magical app? Could that be real? Once again Jason shook his head, as if to clear it of daydreams and hallucinations, but the words on the screen remained.

Making a quick decision, he backed out of Marcus’ profile, and swapped down to the very next one listed.

Lillian Jackson

Relationship: Art Friend, Lab Partner

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Affection 41, Friendship 40, Admiration 21, Loyalty 18, Lust 9

Special Traits: Friendly Tease

Once again, Jason struggled to make sense of what he was reading. Her numbers were high, especially affection and friendship, though he wasn’t totally certain what the difference was between those two. But she also apparently had a bit of lust for him? And friendly tease was definitely spot on. It was something he’d kind of suspected for a while now. She seemed to really enjoy embarrassing him with her lewd art. Maybe Marcus had some legitimate reason to be jealous.

He didn’t linger, but continued scrolling down the list, past more of his schoolmates, then his co-workers, and finally pausing on a pair of completely unfamiliar names. Christine and Louisa Dubois. He racked his brain but couldn’t recall ever hearing those names before. And their placement on the list would have put his last interaction with them, he guessed, shortly before he arrived at work? Or maybe someone he’d had an early work phone call with?

Well, he supposed there was one way to find out.

Christine Dubois

Relationship: Catfisher

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Affection 24, Remorse 21, Disdain 2

Special Traits: Internal Conflict

“Catfisher?” Jason was so astonished he read the word aloud. “The heck does that mean?” This gave him no useful information.

Louisa Dubois

Relationship: Catfisher

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Remorse 31, Affection 29, Lust 4

Special Traits: Internal Conflict, Self Doubt

The same relationship tag. There was a very dark sinking feeling in the pit of Jason’s stomach. He wanted to make sense of this, but he didn’t know what the terms meant, unless…

Jason tapped on the word ‘catfisher’ and waited. He was rewarded when a description appeared, “This person has lured you into an online relationship using a fictional persona.” The tooltip read.

“What?!” Jason was on his feet.

Someone banged briefly on the wall, “Keep it down!” Came the muffled voice of one of his roommates, probably Heather.

He swapped back to Christine’s profile, and looked closely at the photo. It appeared to be a young woman with dirty blond hair and light blue or green eyes. It was hard to make out the exact color on the small screen. Then back to Louisa’s profile, and her picture was almost the same, close to identical, aside from the lighting and the angle. They looked like sisters. Could maybe even be twins.

He backed out to the list again, resuming his seat, and scanned through the names immediately above and below the Dubois girls. There was Michael Cullen, and Allison Carn, and a few other co-workers. This interaction hadn’t been before he arrived at work. This was when he’d responded to the skype messages from Stephani.

Speaking of which. The name Stephani McAllister didn’t appear anywhere on the list. That sinking feeling had grown into a knot of dread, and was threatening to become lodged in his throat. He backed out of the MRE app entirely, and pulled up Skype in its place. He opened a chat with Stephani but then hovered over the keyboard, unable to think what he would write.

She was an hour ahead of him; she was usually asleep by now. His mind was drawing a complete blank, but then he had an idea.

:Jason: Hey Chris, had a question for you.

:Jason: Oh, sorry meant that for someone else. Please ignore.

As soon as he hit send he had to set his phone down and wipe his sweaty palms on his slacks.

Almost immediately he saw three dots, indicating Stephani, or whatever her name was, was typing. Then stopping. Then typing again. And then stopping once more. This process went off and on for fifteen minutes, and then… nothing. Jason waited another five before pulling back up the MRE app.

Now Louisa’s name was at the top of his list. And even as he watched, Christine’s name appeared there, pushing Louisa’s name down at the same moment that he finally received a chime notification from Skype.

He swapped over to the messaging app.

:Stephani: It’s late babe. Who’s Chris?

This was surreal.

Jason got up and went to the kitchen and splashed water on his face then he stared at the message again, before swapping back to the MRE app. This time he clicked open Christine’s profile.

Christine Dubois

Relationship: Catfisher

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Remorse 26 (+5), Affection 24, Disdain 1 (-1)

Special Traits: Internal Conflict

Temporary Traits: Panic

Louisa’s profile showed much the same:

Louisa Dubois

Relationship: Catfisher

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Remorse 37 (+6), Affection 29, Lust 4

Special Traits: Internal Conflict, Self Doubt

Temporary Traits: Breakdown

Jason didn’t answer, just sat there staring at the app, and then the message. Then back to the profiles on the app.

:Stephani: Babe?

Louisa’s profile moved back to the top.

:Stephani: You still there? Is something wrong?

Jason didn’t know what to say, how to respond. He couldn’t just ask if Stephani was… not Stephani. Could he? He let out a groan and covered his face with his hands, the phone on the counter beside him. When he glanced back at it once more, there was another new message.

:Stephani: You know I love you, right?

He picked up the phone, and typed with unsteady fingers.

:Jason: I love you too.

He kept it simple. He didn’t offer any answers, and didn’t demand an explanation.

A few minutes later, a new reply came.

:Stephani: Can we talk? Please?

Jason stared at the screen, then put his phone in his pocket, and walked back to his laptop. He hadn’t even started on his homework, and his mind was too jumbled to work on it now. So he closed the lid to put it into sleep mode, and turned towards the hallway. Just then, keys rattled in the front door, and his sister entered the house, flipping on the light switch next to the door.

Jason winced, shielding his eyes from the sudden brightness.

“Geeze, Jason. What are you doing standing there in the dark?” Alex gasped.

“Sorry, I was just heading to bed. I’ve had a really, really long day.” He was exhausted more emotionally than physically, and there was some part of him that still believed maybe when he woke up, this would all go back to normal, like a bad dream.

“Your face is red.” She said, setting her keys and purse down next to the door and closing the distance so she could reach up to feel his forehead with the back of her hand. “You’re warm, but not feverish. Are you feeling alright?” In her pink scrubs from work she looked every inch the nurse caretaker as she fretted over him.

“I don’t know.” Jason admitted, not sure why he was being so honest.

“What’s wrong, Bear?” She asked, her face filled with concern.

“I don’t want to get into it right now. Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow. But for now, I just want to try to sleep.”

She gave him a hard look, but then nodded. “Promise you won’t bottle it up. You know we’re all here for you.”

“I know you’re here for me.” He countered.

“No, we’re ALL here for you. I know Kate and Heather can be abrasive sometimes, but we all care about you. If things get bad, we’ll stand by you.”

Jason sighed. He thought she might be right about Kate, but especially after what the app had said about Heather, he was less certain where she was concerned. But he couldn’t say that to his little sister.

“I know you’re all here for me.” He said at last, and Alex wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him, pressing the side of her face against his chest.

“Then go get some sleep, I hope things look better by morning, and if not, come tell us about whatever’s bothering you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” He couldn’t help but smile.

He went into the bedroom, and turned on the lights before heading to his closet behind the privacy screen and changed into comfortable sweat pants and a t-shirt. He didn’t sleep nude or in his boxers anymore. Not since moving into this apartment. A quick trip to brush his teeth later and he was back by his nightstand where he’d left his phone. He picked it up, and laid down on his bed, hesitating a moment before reading the two new messages from his ‘girlfriend’.

:Stephani: Can we talk tonight, before you go to bed?

:Stephani: Message me first thing in the morning if you can’t talk tonight, okay?

And then before he could close Skype:

:Stephani: Love you lots!

Jason couldn’t answer.

Once more he opened up his mysterious new app. There was Louisa’s name right at the top still. But in between her and the other Dubois girl was Alexandra Kelly.

Curious in spite of himself, he tapped his sister’s profile.

Alexandra Kelly

Relationship: Brother

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Affection 90, Friendship 71, Love 70, Playfulness 68, Loyalty 59, Protectiveness 48, Admiration 37, Trust 35, Worry 31, Submissiveness 10, Lust 3

Special Traits: Fantasy Crush, Taboo Kink

It was an effort not to swear out loud at the revelations on display here. It somehow didn’t surprise him that Alex had more attitude numbers than anyone else. They had a long history and a deep relationship afterall. But the special traits were NOT something he wanted to ever know about his own sister. What the hell, Alex? He thought to himself. ‘Fantasy Crush’? What did that even… He stopped himself, and tapped on the trait.

“You feature prominently in this person’s most frequent sexual fantasies.” That was about what he’d figured. Didn’t make it less disturbing.

He tapped on the words, ‘Taboo Kink’.

“This person is turned on by the idea of certain social taboos involving you, such as ****.” That wasn’t super helpful either. Turned on by the idea of taboos? Did that mean she genuinely wanted to sleep with him, or that just the idea of **** was a turn on? Would she balk at actually doing it?

He couldn’t process this all right now. It was just too much. He began backing out of the app, and when he came back to the main menu, he paused, reading a few of the headings beyond the relationship profiles. One of them read ‘Perks’.

There came up a list of things which definitely sounded like perks, each with a number value next to it. In the upper right corner was displayed another number labeled ‘Energy’. Apparently he had 57 energy points already.

He was able to sort the perks by cost, and looked at some of the lowest cost perks. He could reveal hidden traits and details for a variable amount of points, awaken a new attitude in a single subject for 9 points, or lock in a special trait so it couldn’t change for 14 points.

Scrolling down, a handful of other perks caught his eye. Such as a pair of 21 point perks labeled, ‘Attitude Amplifier’ and ‘Attitude Suppressor’ respectively.

Clicking on them revealed that they could be attached to a single attitude on any one profile, and cause that attitude value to change more quickly. This would happen naturally over the course of time, but was far more effective if reinforced via social interaction. There was no specific time limit, but it did say the perk could have diminishing returns, and it could also be turned off and on, apparently.

He heard his sister enter the room, and quickly go about her nighttime routine, getting changed, leaving to go brush her teeth, and then settling down for sleep. All the while Jason browsed the available perks, until he finally settled on the first two he’d looked at as being the most immediately useful. He paid for the attitude amplifier, and it then asked him which subject he wanted to use it on, and he clicked Christine Dubois, then when prompted which attitude he wished to accelerate, he hesitated, before attaching it to Remorse.

Then he did the same thing for Louisa Dubois.

His sister turned off the light, and Jason shut off his phone screen for a moment, but did not immediately fall asleep. After a few minutes passed he reactivated his phone, which still displayed the perks list, and scrolled down until he found one other perk he’d seen earlier. Awaken Attitude. He took a long moment before he tapped on it then selected the profile for Heather Chase. Then it asked him what attitude he wanted to awaken within her profile, and gave him a long list of potential attitudes, which included all the ones he’d seen so far, and plenty that he’d yet to encounter. But the one he stopped on, and ultimately selected, was Lust. Then, after confirming his points expenditure he returned to look at her profile in full once more.

Heather Chase

Relationship: Rival, Roommate

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Hostility 21, Affection 20, Resentment 16, Dominance 10, Loyalty 10, Lust 0*

Special Traits: Cocktease, Drama Queen

So that was another 9 points, which left him with only 6 energy. He once more blacked out the screen and closed his eyes. He felt a momentary pang of guilt. Sure, increasing the remorse of the Dubois girls felt like some form of justice, if they really had been conning him for months. But artificially installing lust into Heather’s psyche? That was wrong. Wasn’t it? He quickly browsed back to Heather’s profile, and selected the perk, happy to note that there was a button labeled ‘Reconstitute?’. He pressed the button, and read the text explanation that followed. He could only recover half the energy spent, rounded down. That made sense, and he was about to confirm when he once again paused. Why shouldn’t he keep it? It started at 0, and that didn’t honestly change anything. He wasn’t making her lust after him, just making her… he guessed, open to the possibility of feeling a tiny bit of lust for him? If he didn’t buy an amplifier for her, then it would still be up to him to actively cultivate that lust through interactions. Where was the harm in that?

So he backed out, and then closed the app completely, setting an alarm to wake him in the morning and laying back to try and get some sleep, his mind still swirling with thoughts and emotions. Surprisingly, he was able to sleep at some point. He wasn’t even aware how long he lay awake before darkness claimed his mind.